


A Fever You Can't Sweat Out

by lilithenaltum



Series: Both Hearts Beat Like a Metronome [5]
Category: Black Panther (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Baby making, Breeding Kink, F/M, Family Planning, Fluff and Smut, Future Fic, Pregnancy Kink, baby fever, prince bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-21 01:00:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14905502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilithenaltum/pseuds/lilithenaltum
Summary: “I want to have a baby.”He’s still for a long moment, the only movement the soft rise and fall of his chest and the blinking of his winter blue eyes.“A baby?”She nods.“Like… okay, let me clarify cause you’ve said this before and you always make sure to say ‘not yet’ cause it’s not time and you’re not ready-““I’m ready.”“Now?”“Well, it takes approximately 40 weeks to incubate a human, but yes right now.”The Princess of Wakanda gets a bad case of baby fever and only the White Wolf can cure it.





	A Fever You Can't Sweat Out

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the lovely Steph, who bemoaned the lack of WinterPrincess smut in the tags as of late and who is anticipating my equally smutty (if not smuttier) next chapter of Faith & Desire patiently. This is set approximately seven years after the end chapter of Faith & Desire, so it's a future fic...if you'd rather not be spoiled about the outcome of that fic, maybe wait and read this one later!
> 
> If you're not about the breeding kink life, this may not be the fic for you, but it's not that heavy handed so perhaps you'll surprise yourself and enjoy it. I love comments and I love all of you. <3

  
It’s funny how hard it hits but when it does, it nearly knocks her senseless. Baby fever, is what they call it, and it’s normal, apparently, for a young woman of childbearing years. She sees babies everywhere; hears them cry and coo and giggle. One day she’s in the market with her mother, having lunch and enjoying the gorgeous summer weather when a chubby toddler comes running past their table at the meat pie shop, sticky little hands reaching out to grab hold of her skirts and begging to be picked up. She can’t deny him; he’s the most gorgeous thing, nothing but sweet brown skin and round cheeks and she almost cries at how soft his curly hair is when she pulls him into her lap and lowers her head to kiss his crown.

 

“Oh Mama…look how sweet!” she exclaims, eyes shining with tears because she wants one of her own now, so badly. And yet, she’s been putting it off for some reason. Fear, maybe, of the unknown, or the idea that after this, she may regret her choice and that her life will no longer be her own. She’d grown up wanting to be a mother someday, but the longer she lives and the louder the clock ticks, the more she goes back and forth on the matter. Or, she had, at least until the last couple of weeks. Now, all she wants is to have a baby, or two, and feel the oddity of a little life kicking beneath her heart and smooth her hands over her belly as she eagerly awaits another member of the Wakandan Royal family.

 

Ramonda smiles indulgently, knowing full well how badly baby fever had hit her daughter, and tickles the little boys bare feet to get him giggling. There’s a rush of activity to their left and a harried woman with another younger baby on her back comes skittering into the meat pie shop. Her face is absolutely horrified.

 

“Your Highness!” She squeaks, bowing quickly, and then turning to the Queen Mother to do the same. “I’m so sorry, I let go for just a second and then-“

 

“No!” Shuri says, her arm around the baby boy’s tummy, her chin on his soft curly head. “No, no, it’s fine! He’s a darling, really. You’ve done nothing wrong. I know how busy you must have been. He’s such a sweet baby! How old is he?”

 

The woman smiles gratefully and Shuri is struck by how lovely that smile is, set in a round face of dark skin and bright brown eyes. She looks young, probably no older than Shuri herself. “He’s almost two! And never stops moving, that one. I’m hoping his baby brother will be a little more subdued.” She huffs then, and shifts the sleeping baby boy on her back to the side a bit, her grin wry and amused. “Ah, but I wouldn’t trade him for anything.”

 

“And I wouldn’t either, if I were you,” Shuri said with a smile. Almost begrudgingly, she handed the boy off to his mother, doing her best to suppress her tears when the sweet child waved his chubby little hands at her and smiled, two small teeth on the bottom gums and his eyes twinkling happily.

 

“You can have that too, Bibi,” Ramonda says knowingly, as Shuri blots her eyes and takes a sip of her lemon water. “All you have to do is ask and James would give you as many babies as he possibly could.”

 

And her mother was right. Bucky had told her so, a few years past, that he’d wanted very much to be a father and wanted her to bear those children. For several years, she’d put it off; she wasn’t in any real hurry anyway, not with how young she was when they got together, but after eight years of being together and five of marriage, she felt that maybe now was time.

 

And so she schedules a doctor’s appointment with her gyno, Dr. Felundi, and has her implant removed. It’ll take a few days for the hormones to wear off, just in time for Bucky to come home from his latest mission with the Hatut Zeraze in Morocco. And that’s when she’ll spring it on him; she wants a baby, and she wants one badly.

 

* * *

 

“Let’s go on a little vacation,” she says, after he’s swung her up in his arms at the tarmac and pressed kisses to her cheeks and her forehead. He’s been gone two months this time, longer than he has been since they married, and she’s missed him so. Her body has too, she’s not ashamed to admit, but her body is also going haywire with the need to get pregnant. Dr. Felundi had said she’d start ovulation almost instantly, and she hadn’t been lying. Shuri was hornier than she’d been in almost ever.

 

“A vacation, huh?”

 

“Mmhm.”

 

He hasn’t even unpacked yet. Servants carry most of his bags behind him, leaving his hands free save for a gift he’d gotten her in Morocco, and his pad, so he shifts things around until he can grab hers as they make their way to their bedroom.

 

“And what’s the occasion?” Bucky asks, his smile soft and loving just for her.

 

She smiles, and then there’s an odd little twinkle in her eye that makes him pause. She tries to dial it back but he’s sharp.

 

“What?”

 

“I uh...I’m just glad to see you after so long.”

 

“I’m glad to see you too, sugar,” he says with a soft laugh, rounding the corner to their bedroom. “You’re up to somethin’ ain’t ya?”

 

She shakes her head, but she knows he knows she’s lying, especially when the corners of her mouth waver back and forth between wanting to laugh and trying to keep a straight face.

 

“Fine. Whatever. I’ll tell you when we get in the room. I kind of want to do this in private, anyway.”

 

That seems to spark his interest tenfold but he doesn’t push the issue at the moment. He nods and waits as she puts in the keypass to their door.

 

He tips the servants generously, like he always does, though there’s no real need. Any job in the palace is one of the most coveted in the capitol. But Bucky’s nothing if not appreciative and kind and so it’s nothing to him to splurge on his giving back to others. They place his luggage in the sitting room and bow with respectful smiles, leaving the two of them alone with soft goodbyes to the princess and Ingcuka. None of them call him _Prince_ , at least not in his presence. He won’t stand for it.

 

Bucky plops down on the bed and sighs, laying back as he stretches out and for a moment he says nothing. She knows how much he misses home when he’s gone, and especially this bed. So she slips in beside him and curls up against his chest, smiling when he leans over to kiss her forehead and wrap her into his arms.

 

“I really did miss you, Buck,” she says, and his eyes crack open just a bit.

 

“And I really did miss you, sweet baby. I always do.”

 

He had told her once that in the tightest of situations, the direst of circumstances, the most dangerous of missions, that he always had her face in mind and that she was what kept him going. She wondered how his work would change once she got pregnant; Nakia had given the brunt of the heavy and dirty work to him when she first had Nala, and had only picked up more again once Azari was weaned.

 

Bucky opens his eyes all the way and turns to her then, smoothing a bit of hair from her temple that had come loose from her bun. “What’s been going on while I’ve been playing spy?”

 

She fills him in on the local gossip, tells him about D’Wobe’s girl problems, and gushes about little Azari learning to walk. “He tumbles around after his sister and gets so upset if Nala leaves him behind. Poor thing flops in the middle of the floor and sobs.”

 

“He’s such a sweet boy,” Bucky says with a smile. “Reminds me so much of his mama.”

 

“Oh he’s Nakia made over,” Shuri agrees, and she plays with the collar of his soft red henley. “If he didn’t look like a spitting image of T’Challa as a baby, you’d think she birthed him all on her own.”

 

Thinking of her niece and nephew made her think of babies and babies made her broody and a little weepy. She flops over in the bed and stares up at the ceiling, unsure of how she wants to get this out. Would it be uncouth to just straight up ask? Or could she simply drop hints? She knew how much her husband valued honesty, so perhaps a straightforward approach would work better. She simply had to get the courage to say something. What if he’d changed his mind after so long?

 

“Talk to me, sugar,” he says, when she’s quiet for longer than he likes. She turns to him with worry on her face and her brow furrowed though she knows she’s got no real reason to worry.

 

“Shuri?”

 

He’s worried now, she can tell. Bucky’s mind has a nasty habit of cycling through all possible reasons she could be upset, coming up with the worse scenarios imaginable. “What’s wrong? Tell me.”

 

“Nothing,” she says, sniffling a bit and wiping her eyes. “I just…” She sucks in a deep breath and meets his eyes, steeling herself for any possible backlash and then just blurts it out.

 

“I want to have a baby.”

 

He’s still for a long moment, the only movement the soft rise and fall of his chest and the blinking of his winter blue eyes.

 

“A baby?”

 

She nods.

 

“Like… okay, let me clarify cause you’ve said this before and you always make sure to say ‘not yet’ cause it’s not time and you’re not ready-“

 

“I’m ready.”

 

“ _Now_?”

 

“Well, it takes approximately 40 weeks to incubate a human, but yes right now.”

 

The look on his face is priceless. She isn’t sure if he’s stunned or wants to cry but then the biggest smile she’s ever seen breaks out on his face and he tugs her close, covering her face with kisses as he laughs happily. “A baby? Our baby?” He sounds so damned happy, so very excited, and she’s not even pregnant yet. She knows when she tells him, he’s going to cry. He’s wanted to be a father for a very long time.

 

“Mmhm. And the sooner we get started, the sooner we’ll have one.”

 

That brings a smirk to his mouth and he pushes her thighs apart, settling in between them and kissing her mouth slowly. As much as she craves this, she doesn’t want to do it here, not in the palace where everyone can hear her. She knows how loud she can be at times, especially when it’s really good, and she wants to let go while she conceives. No inhibitions, no stress, no nothing. Just her and Bucky and the solitude of nature around them. Besides, she’d remember reading that the happier a couple were while creating a child, the happier that child would be. So she pulls back from him, reluctantly, and breathes against his mouth, her legs wrapped around his waist and her hands in his hair.

 

“Not here,” she pants, and he screws his face up confused.

 

“What you mean not here?”

 

“Not here. I don’t want anyone else about. That’s why I suggested a vacation,” she says, shimmying out from underneath him and out the bed. She slides out the clothes she’d worn to the lab earlier that day, and throws on a simple sundress, toes of her boots and slides on her flip flops, before heading to the closet and grabbing a duffel to pack. “I was thinking we could stay a few days at the waterfall.”

 

“The waterfall? The one we went to on our honeymoon?”

 

She nods. “It’s perfect! Secluded, beautiful. There’s the treehouse there and plenty of fresh fruit to eat. And fish, too, since I know how much you like fish.”

 

He laughs and follows her into the closet, where he digs around in his drawers and finds a few clothes for himself. “I love a good fillet. I still don’t understand why you dislike it so much.”

 

“I don’t. Not really. I’m simply never in the mood for it.”

 

“So you don’t like it.” Shuri snorts out a laugh and pulls out a few different bathing suits to choose from.

 

“The purple or the yellow and black?”

 

Bucky glances between them and raises a brow, his mouth coming up to curl into a smirk.

 

“How bout neither, sugar? To be honest, I don’t know why you’re bringing clothes period. You ain’t gonna need 'em.”

 

He gets a whistle and a laugh for that comment and she tosses her bag down to pull him close to her, thread her fingers through his hair, and kiss him softly.

 

“What am I going to do with you, hmm? My Ingcuka…”

 

He shivers a bit when she calls him that, especially in that tone, and dips his head down to suck a bit of the skin of her neck into his mouth. It’s her sweet spot, guaranteed to make her melt in his arms and whimper, and she does just that, pressed against his chest and breathless.

 

“Gonna make me a daddy if I’m lucky,” he whispers, and she grins up at him before pulling him down for another kiss.

 

* * *

 

They go swimming first, just to take some of the pressure off from the last few days and weeks. It’s hot outside and the water is perfect, cool and peaceful and serene. One end of the pool is the waterfall, a thirty foot tall ancient structure that has been around since before the days of the first black panther. Black rock and sand make up the bottom of the pond and line the back of the waterfall. There’s a myriad of flowers and tropical plants around the banks and on the other end is a large treehouse, built nearly a 100 years before by Shuri’s grandfather for his wife as a birthday present. It’s one of Shuri’s favorite spots in Wakanda, and the perfect place to try for a baby.

 

Lain out on her back in the pool, floating along with her eyes closed, she sighs as the water tickles the sides of her face and laps around her body. Bucky treads water beside her, bumping into her ever so often and snatching a kiss here, a touch there. He only lets his fingers trail over her skin just enough to set her on edge and just when she’s relaxed again, he riles her back up. It’s a little game he’s playing, his way of setting her on fire so that later, when she’s finally tired of the water, she’ll be ready for him. But he doesn’t realize she’s been ready since before he even got home. Her skin is extra sensitive and her core aches in a way it almost never has.

 

“Buck,” she whines, opening her eyes to glance up at the gorgeous dusky sky. It’s obscured mostly by the palms and the banana trees that line the top edge of the cliffs around them. So just a bit of light filters in, casting a dark, sultry glow on her skin.

 

“Yeah, sugar.”

 

“I wanna go back to the treehouse.”

 

He grins, floats over and kisses her temple, his breath warm and sweet on her face. He turns around so she can straddle his back and then he swims them out of the pool, grasping under her knees to keep her steady as she rides him piggyback up the rocky stairs to the treehouse. It’s a steep climb, so he goes slow, not even out of breath as they ascend.

 

“You wanna know a secret?” he tells her, as he takes each ancient groove in the obsidian rock slow and steady.

 

“I do,” she says, smiling against the skin of his shoulder, her arms draped around his neck.

 

“The idea of you having my baby is something I’ve thought about for a long, long time.” He turns his head just a bit and she catches the way his eyes glow in the dark. Water drips from his long, brown hair and down his collarbone to his chest, his words rumbling there deeply as he speaks. There’s something about the way he looks at her that stokes the fire burning low in her belly a bit higher.

 

“How long?” she asks, though she figures she already knows. Probably since he’d fallen in love with her, way back then, when they’d just started their love affair and had to hide their relationship.

 

“Since even when I didn’t think we’d ever get to be anything,” he responds, confirming her belief. “I’ve never told you this before,” he continues, “but there were nights when I couldn’t sleep. Especially after we started makin’ love and you couldn’t come see me. It’d be so quiet in that old cabin, and I’d miss you somethin’ serious.”

 

He lets out a breath as they near the treehouse, only a few more steps now. Her legs clench about his waist a bit tighter, her body pressed against his back, and she’s so suddenly aware of how warm he is even with the cool dampness of the pool still clinging to him.

 

“Did you ever touch yourself and think of me?” she asks him, hot in his ear, and she feels him shudder when she pushes her hips forward to punctuate her query. She loves that she has that kind of affect on him, that she holds power over his responses because she knows he has the same over her. She’s tried to keep it a secret, the little things that set her off, but after eight years, he’s just about learned them all.

 

“I did,” he breathes, as they reach the treehouse and the rope ladder that they have to climb to get inside. She slides off his back then, feet touching cool rock as she does and she stares down for a moment at the pool far below, at the rushing waterfall to her left and the darkening sky above. And then she looks at her husband, the man she loves, and her heart thuds so hard she’s scared it’ll burst. He still does that to her, give her butterflies and set her body alight.

 

“I would hold off as much as I could...but it’d get so bad sometimes. Days without you.” He pulls her close, presses his hardness to her belly and it’s her turn to shiver now. “So all I could do was reach down and grab myself and pretend you were there touching me, loving me. Sometimes...sometimes, all I had to do was imagine you pregnant and barefoot on that farm, your belly all big with my baby, and your skin glowin’. And that was all it took. Scared me to death a few times, how hard I’d cum.”

 

_Bast…_

 

All she wanted right now was to strip him from the shorts he wore and ride him hard and long until her body ached and her thighs cramped. She lets out a whimper and pulls his head down to kiss her, all teeth and tongue and spit, until he’s gasping into her mouth and grinding his cock against her. He tugs her roughly around till she’s at the ladder and she ascends it fast as she can, glancing back to find him grinning at her like a wolf on the hunt, and it sends the sharpest of thrills through her. Big hands grasp her hips when she makes it to the bamboo floor of the treehouse and pulls her over from the entrance to press into the canes, a heavy body hard as steel and so very hot covering her like a blanket. He felt so good on top of her like this, and she invites him closer, her legs parting for him almost automatically.

 

“You dream of this, don’t you?” She asks, as he tugs at her bikini hurriedly. He growls as the strings tangle and twist in his hands and she laughs, swatting his fingers away so she can take the lead. Undoing the knots, she peels away the wet bathing suit slowly, eyes on his as he watches hungrily. If she thought she was aching and ready for him, she hadn’t stopped to really think of how badly he must have wanted her, especially now with the knowledge that he’d gotten off on thinking of her pregnant. A grin slipped across her face and when the top fell, exposing lovely breasts and dark, cool hardened nipples, she crawled over to where he sat on his haunches and moved to straddle him.

 

“Of stretching you out and knockin’ you up? Goddamn, yeah I do.” He leans in and nips at her neck, his hands smoothing along her lush skin greedily and she gasps when the calluses of his palms rake across her ribs. “All of the time.”

 

Shuri’s breaths come on pants when he pushes his hips up and tugs at the string of her bottoms. She drags her hands down his chest and slips them into the waist of his shorts, finding his cock hot and hard for her, and he moans when she starts to stroke him.

 

“Then let me make your dream come true, my love,” she purrs, sliding off his lap and out of his arms. Her bottoms come away in his hand and then she’s naked before him, knees up and legs wide, the slickness of her desire wet on her thighs. She slides her hand down her torso as he watches and then into her heat, groaning as her fingers brush against her swollen clit.

 

Any other time and she’d enjoy long minutes, even hours, of foreplay and teasing. Especially because Bucky was so good with his hands and thorough with his tongue, and because most of all, he enjoyed giving above all else. He’d made no secret of his love of eating her out, going so far as to forbid her from touching him one night and driving her to the brink of pleasure over and over with just his mouth. But right now, she wanted him deep inside her, filling her completely, and taking her like he needed to prove a point. She gestures for him to come hither and he scrambles over to where she lies back, tugging his shorts down as he does.

 

Within moments he’s between her legs once more and with a well practiced push, he’s deep inside her. It takes her breath away to feel him, she’s been starved for so long it seems. And she aches so much for him, so that when he moves, slow and deep but not enough for her, she flips him over and takes the lead, sitting up and then sliding down on his cock hard and fast. He stutters out her name and holds on as she begins to ride him.

 

“Feels so good, doesn’t it?” She asks him, working her hips in figure eights as he holds on to her waist and pushes up to meet her. “To fuck me like this.”

 

“So good, sugar,” he breathes, slipping his thumb down to circle her clit. “So good...god I can’t wait to fill you up.” He grunts, smacks her ass with his free hand, and moves against her a little faster. “You like this too, don’t ya, sweet baby? Fucking me raw like this? You want me to cum all inside that pretty pussy of yours don’t you?”

 

She grins and leans down to kiss him, her skin slip sliding against his and her nails dug deep into his arms. “Oh yes,” she moans, then dips her mouth down to suck a mark into the salty flesh of his neck, right at his pulse. “I want you to cum so deep inside me, Buck, c’mon.”

 

It’s not as though he doesn’t already, but this is different, she knows. There’s no implant now, no barrier between her womb and his seed and she’s so ready, so hungry for it, that she whines and pushes down harder, faster, until she’s not even breathing, just keening and clenching around him. Her orgasm is something fierce, a lightning bolt of pleasure that rushes through her like a wave, over and over until it subsides into something raw but electrifying and she watches his face to see if he’s close.

 

He is, but he’s being stubborn.

 

He flips her this time, pushes her knees back to her thighs and fucks her into the floor. He knows how much she can take, though it’s taken years for her to convince him she could even handle this, and there’s a little part of her that wants to push him for even more. But she doesn’t have to say a word; all she has to do is arch her spine when he taps into something deep inside her that threatens to break her once more and gasp his name into his ear, holding on to him desperately as his hips move fast and shift her across the floor.

 

She wants him to cum with her, but there’s no time to try and work him to the edge because he’s got her cumming once more, this time sharper and faster than the other. And it’s like something inside him has been ignited. He does it again, grasping her thighs hard enough to leave bruises and mumbling filth in her ear so she has no choice but to tumble a third time, then a fourth.

 

She’s drunk and buzzing and her body feels fragile, like it’s about to shatter into a million pieces if he does it again.

 

“Buck,” she pants out, barely able to get a word in because all she can do is moan and cry out when he pulls her to the side and fucks her face to face, his eyes boring into her own. She nearly closes them from the intensity, but he grasps her chin and forces her to stare at him because he knows it’ll drag her down once more. “I can’t...I can’t cum again, I _can’t_!”

 

She can’t, she’ll drown and never come up if she does, and she’s almost terrified of this, but he’s done this before. He’ll save her, she knows. He presses his forehead to hers and she sees how tight the spring inside him has wound up. He’s going to combust and take her with him and she wants it but her heart won’t stop pounding, her body won’t stop moving along with his.

 

“You can, sugar. C’mon...one more time, _please_ just-” He cuts off with a groan so deep that it shakes her insides and she slides her hands into his hair, tugs at the strands and pushes up against him earnestly. She’s got to make him cum, and now, and she wants them to do this together.

 

“Then cum with me,” she whispers, her lips brushing against his own, and he gives a soft little cry as her hands reach down and grab his hips to push them closer and deeper. “Give me all you have, my love. All of you, every drop. I want you so much…” He’s still holding on for whatever reason, probably to push her closer to her own pleasure before he takes his own, her sweet unselfish husband, but that’s not what she needs right now. “ _With me_ , Bucky,” she implores him, moaning a bit when his thrusts speed up and he loses his finesse. “I want you to cum with me...go ahead, my love, I’m so close, so so close, I just want…”

 

But he’s so stubborn, so she does the one thing she knows will tip him over the edge. She rolls over and pulls him with her, wrapping her thighs around him in a vice grip so he can’t pull out even if he wanted. And she knows he doesn’t want to, wouldn’t dream of it. She arches her back once more and lets her cries fall freely and moans his name over and over, calls him her White Wolf the way she knows always drives him crazy, digs her fingers into the muscle of his broad back. But there’s one more ace up her sleeve. She leans in to his his ear and licks the shell of it, her breathless, moaning voice just enough to make him cum.

 

“Give me a baby, Bucky. I want your baby, so bad. Cum with me, my love. Come on.”

 

It’s the final straw. His body shudders violently and the sound he makes is nothing short of desperate and lost and he’s cumming then, so hard that it thrills her to her very core. And she’s cumming too, her own cries of pleasure stuck as a sob in her chest as she feels him fill her, hot spurts of his seed gushing out, rope after rope. She pulls her thighs high and as wide as she can and milks every bit from him, until his moans subside into soft rasps and he collapses on top of her, heavy and sweaty and right. She holds him, as he catches his breath and air settles around them.

 

“Are you okay?” Shuri asks, minutes later as he slowly rolls from off of her. As much as she loves his weight on top of her, after a while, it’s a bit suffocating. She’s glad he knows just when to move. Any sooner and she’d have protested the loss of him inside her.

 

“Goddamn,” he whispers, deep in the darkness of the treehouse. His breaths warm her shoulder and his hands, still shaking, smooth across her belly. He pauses there for a moment, and she finds his eyes, finds joy there, and she smiles.

 

“I don’t think it’s happened already", she says with a soft laugh and kisses his nose. “We’ll have to wait a few weeks to know for sure.”

 

“A few as in two?”

 

She snorts. “Yes, two or three, roundabouts. And in the meantime…”

 

He grins, though it’s lazy and a little slack. “In the meantime, we can practice as much as you wanna.”

 

* * *

 

 

She takes that to heart for the three days they’re at the treehouse. They barely leave, except to gather fruit for breakfast or fish for dinner and to swim the heat of the day away. She spends most of her time underneath him or on top of him and he forbids her from moving afterward, sure that if she lies down with her hips arched high, his seed will take better.

 

She almost hates that they have to leave, but it's good to get back to routine and he’s off on another mission the day after. She goes about her days like she normally does; works in her lab and babysits her niece and nephew while Nakia takes care of business and T’Challa saves the world alongside the Avengers. She sits with her mother in the courtyard and talk about Ramonda’s newest suitor, gushes with Okoye about her upcoming nuptials to M’Baku, teases D’Wobe about the pretty girl he’s after now. And she calls her husband every chance she can, talks to him late into the evening until she falls asleep with the sounds of his sweet voice in her ear. Everyday normal activities, really, day to day and night to night.

 

One morning, she wakes up with a sour stomach and she just barely makes it to the toilet to vomit. It’s fast and violent, and she can barely catch her breath before she retches once more, heaving until there’s nothing left in her stomach but bile. Shuri blinks back tears and wipes her mouth, but there’s something inside her that tells her that she has no reason to worry, and so she washes her face and brushes her teeth and hurries to Dr. Felundi for confirmation.

 

“What’d she say, Bibi?” Ramonda asks, when she comes home to the palace that afternoon. Shuri can’t stop beaming, her face glowing with happiness and she chokes out a laugh a lot like a cry as she hugs her mother.

 

“Another one to add to the bunch,” Shuri says happily and Ramonda bursts into tears.

 

“My baby is having a baby?! Oh glory be to Bast!”

 

News travels fast, faster than she’d wanted and she can only hope that Bucky hasn’t gotten wind of it before he comes home. She’s not sure when he’ll be here this time; he’s so deep undercover that she can’t call him and even chat with him at night like she’d been doing for the last two weeks. Another week passes, then another, and another, and he’s been gone nearly a month and a half before she catches sight of the Alpha descending from the sky from high on Mount Bashenga. She nearly slips across the floor to skitter out toward her car, the Dora on detail smiling knowingly and bowing as she passes.

 

It’s a fifteen minute drive from her lab to the palace, but it seems to take ages. She’s parking her car and bounding out the garage, halfway down the corridor when she catches sight of servants carrying the Prince’s bags to their bedroom. But there’s no sight of Bucky anywhere.

 

“Have you seen his Highness?” she asks one of the girls.

 

“The gardens, my Princess,” she says softly, bowing respectfully. Shuri doesn’t see the grin on the servants faces when she turns around and skips out toward the courtyard.

 

He’s sitting out in the sun, eyes closed, amongst the moonflowers when she sees him. For a moment, she watches him just like this, peaceful and serene, and she is reminded of a day long ago when he’d sat here just like that, hours after his final recommissioning session, the tentative peace of being free of the triggers that had bound and chained him coursing through him. And she had watched him then, too, but she hadn’t disturbed him.  

 

This time, though, there is a decade of time between then and now and he is her husband, her lover, her best friend. So she walks quietly over to where he sits, and takes a breath before sidling into his lap smoothly, grinning when he smiles without even opening his eyes.

 

“Hey sugar,” he greets her, leaning over to nuzzle her neck sweetly, his hands wrapping around her waist tight. “You miss me?”

 

“Always,” she whispers, scratching little patterns into his scalp, his long hair soft and loose around his shoulders. She loves him so much that it leaves her in awe, a little ache in her chest. She can feel butterflies in her stomach, too, from the news she has to tell him.

 

“Mission go okay?”

 

“It went pretty good. We managed to finally get the entire trafficking organization rooted out at the core of it. Only have a few scattered pockets to handle and W’Kabi’s working on that.”

 

“So you’re in for a while?”

 

“Unless Nakia has something extra for me to do, then yeah.” Blue eyes pop open and regard her silently for a long moment. “You got anything you wanna tell me?”

 

She sighs, leans in and lays her cheek on his head. “Please tell me no one spilled the beans before I could.”

 

“About what?” He’s grinning, because part of him already knows, and she wonders who opened their big mouth. That was her news to tell him, and hers alone. But he kisses her chin and clucks his tongue to placate her.

 

“Ain’t nobody told me a thing, sugar. I just assumed. I've been assuming since we left the waterfall.”

 

Shuri laughs at that, lifting her head to meet his eyes once more. There’s so much love there, a little bit of fear, but mostly excitement and so she sucks in a breath and nods her head.

 

“Your assumptions are correct, Sergeant Barnes,” she tells him, and just like she’d thought, his eyes fill with tears.

 

“I’m gonna be a Daddy?” It comes out choked and thick and she almost cries herself because he’s so happy, so very _very_ happy. He holds her tight and sniffles and tries his hardest not to cry but he can’t help it. Tears stream down his cheeks anyway.

 

“Mmhm. I am expecting and due to deliver come April, if Bast is willing.”

 

“She is. Bast and God and Jesus and everybody,” he gushes out, and she laughs, kissing his face as he rubs his hands over her belly.

 

“I can’t believe I...wow…” He stares at her like she hung the moon and the stars and wipes a stray tear from her face and smiles so brightly it burns.

 

“I don’t know how you can’t believe it,” she quips. “I didn’t leave that treehouse for three days and could barely walk straight when we did.”

 

He giggles at that, swooping her up in his arms and kissing her beneath the bright Wakandan sun. And as he carries her back to the their room, no doubt to celebrate the news a little intimately, Shuri says a soft little prayer to Bast, and God, and Jesus too that all will be well.

**Author's Note:**

> I got a tumblr if you wanna come say hay gurl hay. It's lilithenaltum, of course. <3

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Don't be scared](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18656632) by [Oopswakandaforever](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oopswakandaforever/pseuds/Oopswakandaforever)




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